Spent most of this monday gone fitting new head races to one of my XJ600Ns, 5 minute job thought I, no problemo. Started at 11 am finished at 8pm. I've lost count of the times I've put new head races in a bike, usually takes me about 1 hour at the most.

Got every thing off the bike, wheel, brakes, forks yolks in about 15 minutes, then came problem no1, couldn't get the bottom cone off of the steering stem, no overlap, the cone was flush with the machined seating, ended up attacking it with a thin flat screwdriver sans plastic handle, eventually got cone to lift, bloody thing needed to lift about 25mm to come off of ground part of the stem. ended up having to get a cold chisel and grinding cutting edge off then gently driving it between the seating and the bottom of the cone to wedge it off, put a bit of grease on the bottom side of the chisel so it didn't dig into said seat, 2 hours later (had to go buy a chisel) cone came off.

Next problem (haynes manuals suck), struggled for 2 hours trying to get bottom track out of headstock, bloody track bore is same diameter as steering head, hit fingers, threw hammer across garage had a brew. Thinks, I know I'll turn up a drift with a small thin ridge on end so it will catch on bearing track, 1 hour later no joy as my device kept shearing the edge off. Started sulking, went to see me boozing buddy, borrowed a set of commercial drifts off of him, he says check bottom of headstock to see if theres any notches cut out to get to back of bearing track, yep you guessed, 2 very small notches, no mention of them in manual!!

5 mins later bottom track out. Trys to remove top track, tight as f**k no notches no overlap, hole in the middle same size as headstock, sh!t, ended up managing to wedge a drift end under slight chamfer on edge of top bearing track then using it as a lever against the top edge of the headstock and gently twatting it with a Manchester Screwdriver (hammer), this is not really to be recommended but I couldn't see any other way of getting the track out.

Did slight damage to bottom track seat on headstock but managed to file it off. Replaced bearings with taper rollers as opposed to cup,ball & cones. Had to wait whilst wife came back from horse feeding to help me lift the forks back on as being a clever sod didn't bother to udo headlight or owt,just removed everything in one lump, If I'd been an octopus I have been ok.

I don't know how many of you do your own maintainence especially when it comes to replacing stuff like bearings, but the golden rule to remember is to use a carbon steel non hardend drift when tapping bearings into their seats, don't use soft metals such as Brass, Copper, Aluminium or even wood! as the ends of the drifts made from these soft materials will flake under impact and invariably these flakes will get into the bearings causing them severe damage in a very short space of time. another thing to keep in mind is to tap the bearing in very gently and evenly all the way around the edge of its rim, when the bearing is seated properly you should get a solid slight rining sound as opposed to a flat dead impact noise.

If you ever have to put grease into a ball or roller bearing be very carefull as to how much you put in, generally something like wheel bearings only need to be filled up with grease about halfway up to their diameter, don't be tempted to shove loasds in as they bearing becomes hot under load, to much grease will make the bearing overheat and cause it to fall apart and the balls or rollers will start skidding in the tracks. If its something like steering head bearings then they are not prone to overheating as they only rotate very slowly and its usually ok to give them a good dolop, the excess grase will spread out of the sides of the bearing and help to keep water out, a bit like a seal.  :eyebrow:

ive always found a good way of tapping bearings in is to find a socket  thats the same ( or as close as possible) size as the bearing and it makes a good drift  helps the bearing go in square.  also where possible use sealed bearings.

Err...



I prefer to use grease M8!! After my last debacle with the spanners... I'm leaving it to the pros

If I can afford it, I get someone who know what they're doing to do it.

Recently, I'm doing all the stuff myself.  :sniffle: Then again, At least I know its done right, when I do it myself. Even if I'm not the greatest mechanic, I can still do a better job than some folk who should know better.

The only problem I've got is that I haven't got somewhere decent to work on the car or bike. Its not nice working outside in this weather. Luckily, I was able to borrow a friend garage for a few hours, when I had to do the cages handbrake. The bloke who had done it the last time and accepted payment, had made a right arris of it.

There's a lot to be said for working on your own stuff.